Mail processing facilities often use mail processing machines to print and insert mail into envelopes. The speed of these inserters is greatly influenced by the amount of material or number of pages per package. As the number of pages for a given package increase, overall speed per package of an inserter decreases. This is because as a larger package is assembled, components upstream from an assembly module slow down until assembly is complete. Hence, the assembly module limits the speed of the entire machine.
Moreover, mail processing facilities that print and process large amounts of mail obtain postal discounts if the mail is grouped by common destinations. Mail can either be grouped before or after printing. After-print grouping adds additional effort to the mail producing process. Alternatively, grouping software groups mail before it is ever printed, and arranges the mail in a way that accomplishes maximum postal discounts.
A need has arisen to increase the throughput of mail processing machines while maintaining postal discounts.